EPA officials, however, refused to answer questions or make staff members available to explain the exact location and number of monitors, or the levels of radiation, if any, being recorded at existing monitors in California. Margot Perez-Sullivan, a spokeswoman at the EPA’s regional headquarters in San Francisco, said the agency’s written statement would stand on its own.

Critics said the public needs more information.

“It’s disappointing,” said Bill Magavern, director of Sierra Club California. “I have a strong suspicion that EPA is being silenced by those in the federal government who don’t want anything to stand in the way of a nuclear power expansion in this country, heavily subsidized by taxpayer money.”

Many people assume that – if you can’t find your own geiger counter – you don’t have many choices, other than relying on vague government announcements or scattered sources of information.

However, even if the EPA won’t publicly discuss radiation levels, we can go look at the EPA’s numbers ourselves. … and we don’t need Anonymous to hack into the EPA’s site to do it.

2.In the bottom right box labeled “Fixed Monitor Location”, click on the location of the monitor that you want to see results from

3. In the lower left box labeled “Time Range Criteria”, specify the date range for the desired radiation readings

4. The upper left box labeled “Available Parameters” gives various beta and gamma radiation readings. Highlight as many as parameters as you wish. Click the right arrow (to the right) to put them in the “Selected Parameters” box, or the double right arrow to select all.

5. Hit the “Submit” button at the bottom of the screen. If there are no results, hit the back button on your browser, select ” Deployable Monitor List” to the right of “Monitor Type”, and then manually highlight one of the monitors in the “Deployable Monitor Id” box.

6. Once you get results, you can create charts or graphs of the information. Just scroll down on the results page to the box labeled “Custom Graphical Plot”, and choose your x-axis. I like “Measurement Start Date/Time”.

7. Click either the “Scatter Plot” or “Line Graph” button at the bottom of the results page.